Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 10.9.17
Blended reading (Sanskrit + English inline)
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sva-geha-dāmāni
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all the ropes available in the household
Compound: sva (her own) + geha (house) + dāmāni (ropes, plural). She has exhausted Vraja's rope supply. Gauḍīya reading: the whole household — the totality of sādhana-resources — comes up short.
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smayantī
—
smiling
Present participle of √smi. Yaśodā's response to her own failure is to smile. This is the Gauḍīya signature: the bhakta who realizes the Lord cannot be bound does not despair; she laughs in vismaya.
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vismitā abhavat
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she was struck with wonder
vismitā (astonished) + abhavat (became). Vismaya — wonder — is the rasic register the verse names. Gauḍīya: vismaya is the gateway emotion to bhakti for those born outside Vraja; here even Yaśodā tastes it.
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gopīnām
—
of the elderly gopī friends
Genitive plural. The community of devotees who witness and savor. Gauḍīya: bhakti is communal; the gopīs' shared smiling makes Yaśodā's failure a shared rasa rather than a private failure.
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su-smayantīnām
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all smiling sweetly
Compound: su (well) + smayantīnām (smiling, genitive plural). The chapter's tone shifts: this is not tragedy, it is comedy in the high sense. The Lord and His devotees are laughing together.
Actually this incident was wonderful because Kṛṣṇa was only a child with small hands. To bind Him should have required only a rope not more than two feet long. All the ropes in the house combined together might have been hundreds of feet long, but still He was impossible to bind, for all the ropes together were still too short. Naturally mother Yaśodā and her gopī friends thought, “How is this possible?” Seeing this funny affair, all of them were smiling. The first rope was short by a measurement the width of two fingers, and after the second rope was added, it was still two fingers too short. If the shortness of all the ropes were added together, it must have amounted to the width of hundreds of fingers. Certainly this was astonishing. This was another exhibition of Kṛṣṇa’s inconceivable potency to His mother and His mother’s friends.
All the neighboring cowherd women were laughing (gopinam susmayantinam). Yasoda was astonished (vismita). "A rope of one hundred hastas does not fit around the waist of my son which measures only one fist. And that small waist is not getting any bigger. The rope is certainly not getting any shorter. But still the rope cannot go around him. That is the first amazing thing. When I tie the ropes together, each time, it is two fingers short, not three or four fingers. That is the second amazing thing."
The neighbors were broadly smiling. The possessive case indicates that she ignored them. Though she joined ropes with great determination, the rope was always insufficient to tie him. Her friends laughed in great wonder, but she ignored them. She joined all the ropes in the house including the churning ropes. Or she became united with the ropes by absorption in them. The genitive case can indicate the locative case. The meaning is then “When the gopīs smiled, she smiled out of astonishment.” On that day Rohiṇī had gone with Balarāma to Upananda’s house on an invitation. If Rohiṇī had been there she would have prevented Yaśodā from tying up Kṛṣṇa.
The neighbors were broadly smiling. The possessive case indicates that she ignored them. Though she joined ropes with great determination, the rope was always insufficient to tie him. Her friends laughed in great wonder, but she ignored them. She joined all the ropes in the house including the churning ropes. Or she became united with the ropes by absorption in them. The genitive case can indicate the locative case. The meaning is then “When the gopīs smiled, she smiled out of astonishment.” This was because the ropes could not bind him though they should have. This is the sweetness of the Lord revealing his powers during his infant pastimes. Though he was a limited size as a child, unlimited ropes could not bind him. This shows his unlimited nature. “One object cannot be simultaneously limited and unlimited. Was his limitation only an appearance or real? If the limitation is only apparent, it is actually false, not true, like the sun appearing to be the measurement of a hand though it is actually many yojanas in diameter. If it is a real limitation, then if you say he is also unlimited, people will laugh. The limitation is like being able to hold a sapphire in your hand.” This limitation is the rule concerning material objects. However, tarkāpratiṣṭhānāt: the spiritual is beyond material logic. (Brahma-sūtra 2.1.11) Since the lord is beyond logic because of his inconceivability and power, all contradictions are resolved in the Lord. acintyā khalu ye bhāvā taṁs tarkeṇa yojayet prakṛtibhyaḥ paraṁ yat tu tad acintyasya lakṣaṇam Inconceivable objects are beyond logical explanation. Objects beyond the material world have this inconceivable quality. Skanda Purāṇa asthūlaś cānaṇuś caiva sthūlo ‘ṇuś cāpi sarvataḥ avarṇaḥ sarvataḥ proktaḥ śyāmo raktānta-locanaḥ aiśvarya yogād bhavagān viruddhārtho abhidhīyate The Lord is not heavy and not small. But he is heavy and small at all times. He has no color at all but he is black with reddish eyes. Because of his endowment of powers, Bhagavān is said to have contrary characteristics. Kūrma Purāṇa That principle should be applied in all cases.
- Notice today where your effort keeps falling 'two fingers short' of the result you wanted, and stop adding more rope — pause and beg for His mercy instead.
- Refuse the conceit that any quantity of your sādhana — japa, study, service — earns Kṛṣṇa; offer it as Yaśodā labored, smiling, knowing the binding itself is His gift.
- When a task feels comically beyond you, work on with Yaśodā's smile rather than frustration — let the wonder of His inconceivable potency steady your hands.
A team of friends watches a beloved aunt try to wrap an absurdly large gift in too-small paper — each new sheet still falls short, and everyone laughs together, including the aunt. The wonder is not failure but a glimpsed truth: this gift was always larger than any paper. Yaśodā smiles; the gopīs smile; even the Bhāgavatam smiles.
When Sārvabhauma Bhaṭṭācārya, master logician of Purī, tried to instruct Caitanya in six-system philosophy, Mahāprabhu listened patiently and then revealed sixty-one meanings of one Bhāgavatam verse — collapsing Sārvabhauma into surrender (Caitanya-caritāmṛta Madhya 6).
Like Yaśodā's repeated rope-joining, Sārvabhauma's repeated philosophical maneuvers fell short; the Person inside exceeded every cord. The episode ends not in defeat but in shared wonder — the same vismaya the gopīs feel here.
My note
Source: vedabase.io